


Blue Birds

by sunalso



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, F/M, Valentine's Day, not comic compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 11:21:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7889671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunalso/pseuds/sunalso
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Valentine's Day, 2004. Spike's in L.A., Buffy's in Scotland, and nothing is right.</p><p>Nominated during the 13th round (2016) of the No Rest for the Wicked Awards for best angst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blue Birds

No tomorrow, no tomorrow

               -Gary Jules, Michael Andrews, “Mad World”

****

_Valentine’s Day, 2004_

The sound of the empty shot glass hitting the table echoed loudly in the hole in the wall bar Spike had chosen to drown his sorrows in. The picture of Buffy he’d stolen from Peaches’ desk was propped up against his empty flask. He poured himself another shot from the black-labeled whisky bottle and tossed it back as he stared at her smiling face. The camera had been kind to her. She looked happy, the light a halo around her head.

“What ‘cha doing today, pet?” he slurred at the photo. He slammed the shot glass back down, refilled it, and toasted her. “You’re probably leading some poor sod around by the nose and making him pay for a fancy meal and a pretty piece of jewelry before you’ll take him home to shag him proper.” He tilted back his head and let the liquor pour down his throat. He eyed the photo, his lips a hard line.

“Do you ever think of ol’ Spike while this bloke’s got his hands on you, luv?”

He smashed the glass back on the table, only this time it broke. Woozily, he stared at the shards of glass stuck in his palm and the thin trickles of blood running down his wrist. He couldn’t feel it at all.

****

The man’s hands were on her and she tilted her chin back, looking deep into his eyes. They were grey.

“Wrong color,” she snarled before snapping her arms wide to break the vampire’s hold. Buffy hated the slim, blond ones. They were never right. With a snap of her elbow she stunned him before pirouetting around and grabbing the back of his coat. A sweep of her foot took his legs out from under him and she slammed his face down into a marble tombstone. Letting go of the ugly brown woolen coat he was wearing she seized the hair on the back of his head and continued to smash his face into the memorial until it was a bloody pulp.

Only then did she drop him prone onto the ground and straddle his back. It wasn’t anywhere near right, but that had ceased mattering some time ago. Gently she petted the vampire’s head, patting the hair she’d mussed back into place.

Leaning forward she brought her mouth to his ear.

“You weren’t supposed to leave me. Never ever. You were the one that stayed. I wasn’t ready to be without you. Remember? I was saying it without saying it. I thought you knew.” She pressed her cheek against the back of the vampire’s head. “I’m still all wrong.” With a sigh she ran her hands over shoulders that were too narrow. “You wanted me to go on living so one of us would be alive.” The pain in her chest coiled tighter as it strangled her heart. “But I didn’t survive the hellmouth either.”

The vampire beneath her began to stir. Without hesitating Buffy pulled a stake from her coat pocket and pushed it through the thick wool coat into the vampire’s cold heart. The dust settled quickly in the still night air, coating the ground. Like always, that’s when the crying started.

“Miss you, miss you, miss you,” she chanted as her hands sifted through what remained of the vampire. Her tears fell, turning the dust to clay. There never seemed to be an end to the tears. She wondered if you could die from crying, if her body would weep until there was nothing left and she’d simply fall into ashes.

At last the sobs eased enough for her to be aware of a noise ahead and to her left. Her head snapped up. It was time to be the Slayer again. The local teens found the graveyard to be a romantic place to slip away to make out in on Valentine’s Day, even if the weather was still brisk. She’d come out here to make sure no one lost their girlfriend or boyfriend tonight. It was time to get back to work.

****

She’d stayed out until pink dawn had stretched across the sky.

In town she’d stopped by the grocery story, leaving with a bottle wrapped in brown paper cradled in her arms. Focusing on putting one weary foot in front of the other she almost missed it. A movement, reflected in the glass window of the shop, caused her to turn her head and see it. Buffy stilled, then walked to the window, her nose nearly touching the glass. For half an hour she stood there, staring, until the shop opened and she could get her hands on the piece of paper.

****

Xander wasn’t looking forward to knocking on Buffy’s door. She was always angry when she opened it, ready to bite off the head of whoever was standing there. He shouldn’t be bothering her, especially after she’d come in so late from her patrol.

Damn, that was another thing he needed to discuss with her. A castle full of Slayers and she still insisted on going out alone. It was weird and he was increasingly worried that she was being reckless. He knew she was still hurting and that she’d taken losing Sunnydale a lot harder than nearly everyone else.

Xander paused for a moment to let the Anya guilt and pain roll through him. Then he shook himself. There was no way Anya would want him to mope about when there was still so much to do. Like this nest of Icelandic Hundur demons that’d been killing stray animals and at least one human up near one of the country’s many glaciers. Buffy would be furious if he didn’t let her in on the action.

The door to Buffy’s room was slightly ajar, which at least got him off the hook for having to knock and wait. Instead, he tapped lightly and stepped into the room. “Hey, Buff, I got a mission I thought-“

She was asleep, curled on her side on the utilitarian cot she called a bed. The whole room was Spartan like that. Nothing personal anywhere. Xander understood. If you had nothing, then you had nothing to lose. A lone candle, its flame dancing, sat on the nightstand next to the head of the bed.

Buffy was curled up around a bottle. He frowned. Xander knew she’d been getting three sheets to the wind whenever she went out with the other Slayers, but drinking hard liquor alone in your room was a different matter entirely. He crouched down beside her. The bottle of…Jack Daniels…was still full. It didn’t even look liked it’d been opened. Xander’s stomach sank. Buffy was drowning in something besides booze.

With a small groan the Slayer shifted slightly on the cot and her arm fell off the side, a piece of paper slipping from between her slack fingers. Xander picked it up and his frown deepened. It was a Valentine’s Day card. Two happy looking blue birds were in midflight with a banner reading ‘I love you’ held in their beaks. There was something about the striking blue color of the birds, he knew he’d seen that exact shade of cerulean somewhere before.

Beside him Buffy woke up and starting flailing, desperately patting the bed.

“Where is it? Xander? Where’d it go? Oh my god, the candle. Did it burn, did I let it burn?” Fat tears were rolling down her cheeks.

He reached out and grabbed her shoulder. “Shhh, Buffy, it’s okay. It’s right here, you just dropped it.” He placed the card into her trembling fingers.

“Thank you,” she whispered. She shrugged off his hand and turned over so her back was to him. Carefully, she placed the card next to her on the pillow. She softly brushed her fingertips of one hand over the blue birds before wrapping her arms back around the bottle. “You can go now; the girls can handle whatever the latest crisis is without me.” Her back curved into a bow as she hunched further away from him.

Xander reached his hand out towards her shoulder again, but dropped it to his side before he touched her. He didn’t know what to say or how to make it better.

Reluctantly he stood up and headed out the door, pausing to turn back when his hand settled around the cold metal of the handle. Her hand had crept back up the pillow and was lying next to the card. As he watched her pinky stretched out to touch the ‘I love you’ banner.  When her shoulders began to shake he quickly stepped out and shut the door quietly behind him.

Some grief was meant to be private.

She’d be better tomorrow.

~FIN~

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by the wonderful Gort. Written Valentine's Day 2016.


End file.
